“When he was a young man he prayed constantly for chastity; but years later he realized that while his lips had been saying 'Oh Lord, make me chaste,' his heart had been secretly adding, 'But please don't do it just yet.”

“That night, before he tried to sleep, Louie prayed. He had prayed only once before in his life, in childhood, when his mother was sick and he had been filled with a rushing fear that he would lose her. That night on the raft, in words composed in his head, never passing his lips, he pleaded for help.”

“He was inspired, and yet he wants books!He had been preaching for thirty years, and yet he wants books!He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!He had a wider experience than most men do, and yet he wants books!He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things that it was not lawful for a man to utter, and yet he wants books!He had written a major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!”

“Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee. Only decades later would I realize that he had been giving me a piece of advice.”

“I'd been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all. His passion had been artificial. His pursuit of me had been choreographed.”

“He was full of the restless, dissatisfied energy that always seemed to move into his heart after he visited home these days. It had something to do with the knowledge that his parents’ house wasn’t truly home anymore — if it had ever been — and something to do with the realization that they hadn’t changed; he had.”